


The armada

by Taaya



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Christmas, exploring new planets, impending war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 02:19:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16864363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taaya/pseuds/Taaya
Summary: When surveying a new region of space, the Enterprise is confronted with a whole armada of ships. Kirk, seeing that he's overpowered anyway, decides to do the only reasonable thing: He lowers the shields.





	The armada

Kirk sighed. He felt full of energy and bored at the same time. Finally the Enterprise was on its way again to do, what she was sent out here to do: To actually explore new and uncharted regions of the quadrant, instead of milk runs to planets that were already well known.

 

But exploring new worlds usually meant getting there first, which took a lot of time. Too much, if you were to ask the captain. 

 

He began pacing the bridge. „How long until we reach the borders of known space, Mr. Spock?“

 

„Two hours and 23 minutes until we reach what probe telemetry showed as a class M planet.“

 

Two hours left until he really had something to do. Kirk sighed and kept pacing. How his crew managed not to lose their mind with boredom he could not tell. He hated those days when he had to keep alert but had nothing to actually make adrenaline run through his body.

 

With a sigh he gave up. „I will be in my quarters. Call me, if anything interesting happens. At all! Spock, you have the bridge.“

 

He made his way down to his quarters and rubbed his weary eyes, throwing himself on the bed. If he had nothing whatsoever to do, he could as well rest. Maybe later on he would need his energy.

 

Kirk awoke to red alert blasting through the ship. 

 

“Captain Kirk to the bridge”, he could hear Spock’s calm voice. It least that was soothing. If there was mortal danger and impending doom within seconds, even Spock sounded at least a little pressed. Or urgent? The logical version of ‘Get your ass up here now or we’ll all die’ anyways.

 

He quickly made his way back up and to the captain’s chair. “Report.” 

 

“Planet on the long range sensors, Sir. But when we came in sensor range, a large fleet of ships ascended from the surface.” 

 

A whole fleet against one single ship? No wonder Spock sounded the red alert. This looked pretty badly, even for the Enterprise as flagship of Starfleet. “Tell me they’re only barely in spaceflight age and we can shoot them off the sky or sit here through their attack and do nothing without being harmed.”

 

“The emitted energy indicates warp drive, maybe even more advanced than ours”, Spock stated, still calm. “While this is no indication of their weaponry, statistically it is more likely for them to have weapons matching our own.” 

 

“And we’re just one ship. They are … How many exactly?” 

 

“New ships keep ascending. More than a hundred ships by now.”

 

Kirk silently cursed. Then he decided to take a leap of faith. “Lower our shields and try to comm them.” 

 

“Excuse me, Sir?”

 

“Looks like if they really wanted to fight us, we’d be no match for them. They could do with us whatever they want. So, let’s try good old diplomacy.” What he wondered was if this large number of ships was really meant for them. Maybe they were just at the wrong place and time? An armada such as this could have fought a war, why use the resources to let all of them ascend from the planet for just a little singular ship? That didn’t make sense. At least Kirk hoped so.

 

“Shields down”, Sulu stated.

 

“Channel open.” Now it was Uhura’s turn. 

 

“On screen.” 

 

An old man with white beard and hair appeared on the front screen and for a moment Jim thought that this man rather looked like a nice grandfather and not like a real threat. But then again he had learned the hard way not to be fooled by alien appearances. Hell, Klingons were afraid of fluffy fur balls. In space danger could have the face of a kitten and still be as lethal a thread as any.

 

“Captain James T. Kirk from Federation starship Enterprise. Who am I talking to?”

 

“Don’t tell me you don’t recognize me, Jimmyboy. You know me all your life”, the old man said and while this should have sounded disturbing, Kirk felt rather warm. There was no threat in the man’s voice. Rather a kind of fatherly love and amusement.

 

Jim looked closer. “Well, you do look familiar. But that may be because you resemble the look of old people on my home planet. They tend to look like you often. We have never been to this planet before, how should I know you?” 

 

The man chuckled. “Tell me, Jimmy. What date is today?”

 

Jim looked puzzled.

 

Sulu’s voice rang through the captain’s rather desperate tries to find an answer. “Captain? On the old earth calender right now is the 24th of December, about 8am.” 

 

“Christmas”, Kirk muttered. 

 

“See, I knew you’d know me. Your people may not have come to this planet before. But we’ve certainly come to yours. For millennia to be exact.” 

 

“You’re Santa?”, Jim asked, still confused. “By why would Santa need an army.” 

 

“Army? How do you suppose I transport gifts for trillions of children?” 

 

That made sense, Kirk had to agree. “Mr. Santa, Sir, … we are explorers. Are we allowed to visit your planet?”

 

The old man thought for a moment and then nodded. “But you’ll have to wait until we get back. From 24th of December until 6th of January we have too much to do. So many different traditions on when children receive their gifts. And you will have to sign a contract of confidentiality. We don’t want to spoil the kid’s fun by telling them where to find Santa, do we?” 

 

Kirk nodded in agreement. 

 

“See you in two weeks, Jimmyboy. Oh and ...ho ho ho.” 

 

With that the screen went back to showing data from the exterior sensors. The huge armada of ships slowly made its way out of the solar system and then engaged their warp drive.

 

“Way more advanced than ours”, Spock exclaimed. “They could actually be capable to reach earth within the next eight hours. Fascinating technology.” 

 

“Yeah, well … I don’t suppose they’d want to join Federation and exchange knowledge, Spock. But … meeting Santa ….” Kirk grinned childishly. “Okay, we have two weeks to spend. While we’re here, we should survey the other planets in the system. That might give us something to do. Mr. Sulu? Lay in a course to the next planet, one quarter impulse.” 

  
  
  
  



End file.
